Though the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was never really a fan of the arcade controls over a gamepad. Plus the parts for two controllers and the thought of building an enclosure kind of turned me off. But I remembered that we have a spare NES here which doesn't read games very well. Then I thought it would be kind of neat to have an NES be a case for a Raspberry Pi, and ended up with this:

It works, but it's kind of big. I was trying for something that was a bit more practical than just having a PCB on your desk, but I'm not yet convinced this is it. It raises my second monitor up more than I'd like. Any other ideas for cases? Maybe something a little slimmer.

(This post was last modified: Mon, May 27th, 2013 02:13 AM by Cheese.)

The NES has a pretty large case, in my opinion, especially when compared to other devices... How about a VCR? Or one of the slimmer PS2 models? I've seen photos of people using GameBoys and even LEGO (probably not too great of an idea).

Alternatively, you could just stack some old textbooks under your other monitor so that they're both at an even height. lol

lol. A textbook is actually a good idea for raising a monitor. I was using an old game box before, but it was kind of wobbly.

I think the biggest turn off to using an old NES as a case is that I can't bring myself to throw away all the components that used to be inside. I've been exploring the catalogs of a few electronics distributors and I've found a couple of cases that would be easy to cut up and modify without feeling bad about it. That's what they're designed for, after all. Something like this:

Alex, if you do make a cabinet and want help interfacing the buttons, I'll still help. It's an interesting problem. I'm thinking that it would be most compatible to simply "emulate" a keyboard. Every emulator will work that way, and there's easily enough keys for up to 4 players.

When that iControlPad I ordered so long ago finally arrives, it'll be a good way to control something powered by the Raspberry Pi, since it's basically a keyboard.

(This post was last modified: Tue, May 28th, 2013 12:38 AM by Cheese.)